


When You Can’t Keep the Silence

by Booklight00



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Gets a Hug, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Protective Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sick Character, Sickfic, Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Booklight00/pseuds/Booklight00
Summary: Anakin struggles with the aftermath of Ahsoka leaving the order. Broken hearted he returns to someone that can help him, someone who he should have come to a long time ago.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 61





	When You Can’t Keep the Silence

He had stopped trying to bring her back. There was nothing in this galaxy or the next that he could do to make her come back through that door, it had stopped mattering what Anakin wanted the moment she decided to leave. He couldn’t even open her kriffing door. He shouldn’t even be here. Here at the temple, safe and warm. It was storming outside, for all he knew she was trapped in the rain and lightning freezing to death. Anakin knew that thought was irrational, people didn't just freeze to death on Coruscant. Besides he didn't even know if she was still on Coruscant. That didn't stop his head from spiraling in endless circles. She couldn’t be dead, he would feel if she was dead, wouldn’t he? He felt it on Mortis. He stopped that thought abruptly. 

_ Not there, think about something else, anything else. _

He raked his fingers through his hair, it had gotten longer than he usually kept it. He and Obi-Wan had used to be firm about giving each other trims during the war, but his old master hadn’t cut his hair in a while. 

_ Don’t think about her, just stop, you always do this, stop, stop, stop, she’s gone, she’s gone and nothing will bring her back, stop it, you know she can’t come back, so just stop. _

It was all useless, trying NOT to think about her was just making him picture her in his mind. She was small but had grown since their first meeting, grown in more ways than one. She had blue eyes, not unlike obi-wan, except hers were more framed in black lashes. She had slender fingers like Padme, they had been the perfect fit for her saber. She had a spirit like him. He had at first disliked her cheek but had come to see just how similar they were, maybe that was the reason he hurt so much. 

Anakin was suddenly met with a horrible unmistaken feeling of panic. 

“Not another, please stop” he gasped out loud. His panic attacks had gotten worse throughout the war, but the night she left...he didn't ever want to repeat or remember. He had huddled next to Padme acting like a frightened youngling in front of his brave wife. Trying to draw in one panicked breath after another, convinced his heart was going to burst with how hard it was pounding. Almost overcome with the urge to tear each one of his strained wet ribs out to try and release some of the weight on top of his chest. Padme of course had done what she could to try and help him, keeping a firm grasp on his wrist, trying to count his heartbeats. It had eventually passed but the memory of that hour settled over him like a ghost. 

The sheer memory of that terrible night made him feel a little like gasping. He needed to leave, leave the apartment with her empty room, leave the temple with their watching judgemental eyes. He needed to find her! He at least needed to look, he would never forgive himself if he couldn’t help her while she was in danger. A smaller logical part of Anakin knew he wouldn’t find anything and if he left he may wind up feeling worse than if he stayed. But when had Anakin Skywalker ever cared much for logic when his heart was screaming at him. Without pausing, not even bothering to put on another layer over the light home clothing he wore he yanked open the door and jogged out into the dark sky, the lightning and thunder and pounding rain an echo in the back of his mind. 

The streets were too many shades of black and grey and dark blue. They didn't deserve any of the names he had worked so hard to learn when he was young. Back then everything had excited him, he would spend hours practicing his penmanship on spare flimsy, writing the names off all the colors he had learned has names, burnt sienna, royal blue, charcoal, heather gray. The dark streets of coruscant didn't deserve any of those names. Not when they didn't hold a trace of her. If he could find her, or even a whisper of her maybe this planet deserved the colors it teased him with. It was raining harder now too and thundering, and the wind was so cold and harsh he might have been afraid of tearing his speeder around each corner like an insane person, going way too fast to be safe. But then again when had he ever cared about being very safe. He hadn’t cared while racing on Tatooine. Hadn’t cared on Geonosis, on Christophsis, on Lanteeb, on Naboo, why should Coruscant be any different.

It was on his second hour he abruptly stopped the speeder and sobbed out loud. This was stupid, useless, when would he learn. He wasn't going to find her, she was gone, and part of his very soul along with her. His hands shook so hard he thought he could hear his bones chink and his blood slosh sluggishly throughout his veins. His teeth chattered and clenched. He needed to go home, or at least somewhere warm. His first thought was Padmes apartment, but his wife was off-world on a retreat to Chandrilla. And if she wasn't there he would be better off remaining on the Courscanti streets in the storm than by himself in a dark apartment. He needed someone to hold onto. Different places slashed through his mind, the barracks that held Torrent company were empty, and it’s not like it was a safe place to be if he did accidentally break apart. It’s not like he could stroll through the hallways of the temple either. He didn't even think about returning to his own apartment with its empty walls and cluttered table, and a whole room that still held a semblance of her inside it. That only left one place, one he had thought about for hours in the days after she left. But could he return to it?

  
  


The temple seemed colder today, or maybe it was that he was soaking wet. Either way, he didn't care, he was always cold. He was cold after he left Tatooine, he was cold on Geonosis, he was cold on christophsis, and he was cold now, standing at the entrance of a room he knew a little too well. He couldn’t just knock on the door, that would be too easy for him. He was pretty sure Obi-Wan did not want him to be lurking at the front door anyway. Not after what he did, what he had said, to his master. He was pretty sure no one wanted to be around him very much anymore. Except for maybe Padme. Padme would always be there for him, sometimes she was the only thing warm enough to unfreeze him. Just like she had done all those years ago when she had tucked a blanket around the little desert boy. 

He was a piece of broken machinery, made out of the parts that no one really had use for. Chosen one or not, a machine was only as good as its broken parts, and he was so damaged it was a wonder anyone had hope for him to be something at all.

“Maybe that’s why she left you fool”, his mind scolded. He knew that wasn't really the reason, it didn't stop the thoughts that tore through him every time he saw the color orange or heard someone laugh. He shoved the unwelcome thought out of his mind and turned to something more present.

“Just knock on the door” he ground out, even in his mind it sounded like it was coming through gritted teeth. “Or open the door! You know he didn't change the entry code”. But Anakin still stood in the threshold, dripping water and completely frozen.

His mind turned in circles again, like it always did when something frustrated or upset him. Obi-Wan loved him, he couldn't say it when he was too busy trying to be the perfect Jedi, but he loved him. Or at least he had, before the war, before Padme, before she left. But could he still want Anakin, could anyone after what he had done, after what he had shouted at him the night she left? Force, he had been horrible. He had run away to Padmes apartment for almost a week after their last argument, well Anakin had called it an argument. It had really been almost forty-five minutes of Anakin shouting at obi-wan after his master tried one genuine attempt at soothing. Anakin had practically sprinted out of the temple and had wept the entire speeder ride to Padme’s. He had cried for everything and everyone he had lost. Tears for his men, his mother, the parts of himself and Obi-wan they had lost and given up during the war.

He was still standing at the door, the echoes of his words pulsed and slammed through the apartment and through the temple hallways. And he gave himself over to them, hoping that the pain he felt could be some kind of repentance.

Obi-Wan could feel him. He was standing outside of their...his apartment. Obi-Wan could feel him lurking there like some kind of fiery emblem. That boy had always burned. Light everything up in the force like one of the suns from the planet he was born on. Obi-Wan knew the fire inside of him would burn until he died. On good days it kept everyone warm and safe, on the bad ones it scorched everything inside and out. Obi-wan had always tried to help him contain it afraid that one day it would light up out of his control and burn up the entire galaxy with it. Anakin hadn’t really taken it the right way, he had seen it as obi-wan trying to hold him back. Obi-Wan had never wanted to hold him back, he just didn't want his apprentice to get burned. 

But he was burning now. Anakin had been an inferno ever since she left. Scorching whatever he touched, including obi-wan, especially himself. 

_ Anakin my stupid, brave apprentice. No one blames you for her leaving, no one blames you for half the things that you blame yourself for.  _

He let that sentence flow in throughout him, and then let it go. Anakin wouldn’t listen to it anyways. Obi-wan hadn’t noticed that he had veritably slammed his empty mug down on the countertop until he heard the spoons rattle. He started the stove going and put the kettle on. He didn't pride himself in very much, Jedi weren’t supposed to feel pride, but Obi-wan Kenobi knew could make a cup of tea. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists as if by sheer physical will he could keep himself from sensing the young man at his door. No matter what he tried Anakin still remained a burning ember in the back of his mind. A sudden flash of anger flared through him originating from the spark. The boy was angry again, but what was his anger directed at. Lately, he had been angry at Obi-Wan. 

Anakin was always angry as of late, he tore himself to pieces on the razor edge of his fury nearly every day. Obi-Wan almost let a wounded sound escape his throat as if the burning feeling of shame and fury, and pain were his very own. He had tried so hard to help that boy be what everyone had wanted from him, what Qui-Gon had wanted from him. What had Anakin wanted? Resentment bled through him coloring his cheeks and chest. Had he ever asked Anakin in the first place? 

The tea kettle whistled a high irritating note. And the force screamed the same way, one loud painful trill. 

“Open the door” Obi-Wan scolded himself. “Let him in, give him tea and a blanket and make sure he gets some real sleep tonight. He is no longer your apprentice but he is still you padawan”. Obi-Wan turned suddenly, staring intently at the door, and took one determined step forward. And faltered.

He loved Anakin, even if he shouldn’t say it, even if he had never explicitly said the words. He loved him with the strength and heat that Anakin burned with. But the last time the two of them spoke had shaken him. He knew Anakin hadn’t meant what he had shouted. He was not really the one meant to die on Naboo, it was a thought he had long struggled with himself. He had spent hours meditating and moaning to the force begging to know why he had been spared, and why he had to be the one to light his master’s funeral pyre. He was also not the reason for the great losses in the Clone War, he had been the reason for the loss of many good men, but the fault of the war could hardly be pinned on the shoulders of one man. And Obi-Wan was not the reason she left. That was a painful truth he was still scrambling together a reason for. But he knew he had cared for her, loved her as a daughter, and he could not be the horrible reason she was gone. 

That didn't stop Anakin from shouting at him torn between harsh ragged sobbing and screaming. It had been so intense Obi-Wan had thought that Anakin’s outburst might end with him in the healer’s ward, but about forty-five minutes in Anakin had abruptly stopped, his wide glassy eyes reminding the master too much of the small malnourished boy he had first met. Obi-Wan had just been ready to reach out a hand to him, pull him close to his chest and weep with him before the boy had wrenched himself free from his master’s stare and ran. It had nearly frightened Obi-Wan half to death when after a couple of hours Anakin was nowhere to be found. By the next day had nearly started flying through the streets of Courscant without direction looking for him and sent dozens of messages. After so many days he finally received a comm with one word, safe. 

Obi-Wan continued making tea, trying to let the familiar practice soothe his scattered nerves. He didn't know how well he could handle another tirade from his apprentice. And he was definitely sure he couldn’t handle another tonight. He closed his eyes and let calm breathe in and out through him. Pain rang through the force like a claxon. Anakin’s pain, or maybe it was his own that he had merely been disguising as his formers padawan. He remembered a time where a small blonde boy wept by his side while he remained silent and white-faced. He imagined crawling up beside his master and letting the flames lick at him too. Instead, he had gripped the skinny shoulders harder and imagined one of the happiest memories he could. It was a trick he had done his whole life. A trick he was doing now, imagining or remembering things that calm him for as long as he could remember. He gathered beautiful thoughts and held them tightly to his chest as his tea steeped. 

Qui-Gon braiding his hair in the morning, calm like summer rain. Satine with her proud defiant smile, grinning back up at him as if he was the only light she had ever known. His friends young , and spritely, Quin and Bant and Taria, and so, so many more he had lost. A ten-year-old Anakin begging him for the hundredth time to let him skip mid-afternoon mediation and see the new fighters in the hanger. He left their joy fill him up, and then he released it feeling a bit warmer than he had a few moments ago. 

Obi-Wan had taught the same trick to Anakin from the other side of a door in a palace on Praxus. Anakin was so small and scared, trapped for hours in a dark room with the temperature steadily falling after the door had jammed and neither of them could get it open without carving into it with a saber. Figuring that cutting down a palace door could be bad for Jedi relations, Obi-Wan had instead talked to Anakin through the door until maintenance could get it open. And he had very nearly succeeded in his calm and detached masterly demeanor. Until Anakin had nearly hyperventilated. Something inside of Obi-wan broke hearing his padawan’s painful sounding gasps as he remembered a situation he had been in not too long ago. Only he hadn’t been trapped in a pitch-black room with a temperature far too low to be safe. Instead, it had been a fire beetle pit on Tanaab. And he had been the apprentice convinced he was going to suffocate under the weight of the pain. Panicked Obi-Wan asked Anakin to name the day he was the happiest he’d ever been. Anakin had told him of the day he won his freedom, a hasty gamble that only Qui-Gon Jinn was mad enough, or smart enough to take. The boy had calmed somewhat during the story, and when he was finally released from the frozen black room had run straight for his master trembling with both cold and fear. And Obi-Wan had happily held him for the remainder of the night. 

Obi-wan let himself smile softly, Anakin had been so tiny, he would wrap the boy in his robes snuggly and still have fabric left to bundle around his head. 

_ Anakin _

He was still out there, Obi-Wan could practically feel him shaking. All the sadness and pain Obi-Wan had been trying so hard to cover with old memories flared up again like an infection. And with the pain came anger of his own. Anger for himself, for her for leaving, for Anakin not being able to hold his tongue, for the Jedi as a whole, everyone who had taken part in this awful war. And to Obi-Wans surprise he didn't want to stop feeling angry. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but strangely enough, it felt...good. It felt nice to just let himself feel something that he didn't try and put under reins. To just let something other than pain and stifled cries cover him.

Standing, Obi-wan picked up his mug without having taken any sips and poured the cold tea down the sink, set on making himself another cup. Anakin was still lurking outside his door like some lanky blot of ink. He shoved the boy from his mind and filled the kettle again with water, scrubbing the mug sharply with a sponge even though it didn't need washing. He slammed the kitchen towel he had been drying the kettle with down. If Anakin wanted to stay outside his door the entire night he would let him. Obi-Wan had always tried so hard to bridge the seemingly endless gaps between them and what had Anakin ever do but shove and push him away? Obi-Wan looked up with what he was sure was fire and flame in his eyes. Turning his head to the side feeling almost ready to have a shouting match of his own he turned, and something caught his eyes. 

Almost immediately the fire inside of him smothered. And sharp hot shame cut through him. It was so visceral he had to grip the counter with one hand to keep himself from sliding down the wall. It was one jeweled succulent resting in a clay planter on the windowsill. The plant had been Qui-Gons, one of the many green things Qui-Gon had insisted on keeping in their apartment. Obi-Wan had half laughed at all his green things, most of them died while they were sent away on missions anyways, always seeing to wilt when his master was away.

_ Oh, my dear Master, they were not the only things to wither without your presence. _

This particular succulent however seemed to be unkillable. Even in their year on Mandalore and Draboon during his time with the duchess, the little plant had seemingly refused to be killed by negligence. Qui-Gon swore it would never die. Anakin had joked that the succulent was really a very realistic-looking plastoid. 

Qui-Gon had taken Anakin because he loved him, and in selfish jealousy, Obi-Wan had been distant their first while together. It was a decision Obi-Wan had come to regret for thirteen long years. What Anakin had felt was most likely the same thing Obi-Wan had felt sear inside of his heart after Qui-Gon’s death. Had his former padawan cried on her bed holding her silka beads as Obi-Wan had wept into the sleeve of his dead master’s robe?

_ Anakin, my little seedling, can you forgive me my horrible weaknesses. _

Suddenly it didn't matter if the stove was on, it didn't matter the sink was still running, without any abandon or hesitation, Obi-Wan shot to the apartment’s entrance and practically shoved the door open. 

Anakin was standing on the threshold, one hand awkwardly raised as if he was seconds away from knocking. He was soaking wet and shaking from the cold, but out of all the things that screamed for Obi-Wan’s attention, it was his eyes that caught Obi-Wan’s stare first. Had they always looked so dull, so remarkably full of buried hurt? They were still blue like the Alderaanian seas but something new within them reminded Obi-Wan of a collapsing star. Force, how could he have tried to separate himself from him? Because he had been hurt by what he said. Obi-Wan was older and wiser than the young man that stood before him, he had known that Anakin was wrong, that he didn't mean anything he had shouted, known that all the pain he felt over the younger man’s words were nothing compared to how both of them felt over the loss of their padawan. 

“I,” Anakin began and then stopped, his voice tearing from his larynx like a spindle of weak thread. “I...I’m sorry,” he ground out.

The circles under his eyes were so dark they looked like bruises.

“Anakin”, he started his own voice sounding weak and breathless. 

Anakin’s face had thinned since he had last seen him, his cheek and collarbone protruding awkwardly from his tall frame. How long had it been since his former Padawan had eaten or slept, days most likely. The weeks after his mother died, after he lost his arm he could barely stomach more than half a plateful before the sadness and the shame made him unwell. Even though Obi-wan pleaded with him to try and consume a little more, even though Obi-Wan knew better than any living being how much Anakin hated to feel hungry. 

Obi-Wan had halted his words and instead placed a hand on Anakin’s brow, then moved it to rest against his cheek to check for a temperature. There was no way Anakin was well by the way he looked. He felt slightly too warm to be safe. He felt Anakin shiver under his palm, was it from the low-grade temperature or due to the fact that he was soaking wet and most likely had been for a very long time.

“Anakin come inside.” Obi-Wan insisted pulling him into the main room. 

He hadn’t said a word since his terrified strained apology, instead trading words for a wide empty look in his eyes. He looked so young standing in the main room with one hand wrapped hard around his side as if he removed it he might unravel entirely. Obi-Wan quickly returned to the kitchen to fill a glass with water as Anakin stood dripping wet in the main room with the same terrified wide look in his eyes.

“Drink this,” Obi-wan handed him the glass of water. “And then I want you to go take a warm shower and dry off well.” 

Anakin’s hands shook so much as he raised the glass to his lips that Obi-Wan was worried he might drop the liquid. But he was more worried that Anakin had said nothing since entering the residence, not even when his master had made decisions for him which was something he disliked a great deal. Years of long experience had taught him that after an amount of time without rest when Anakin was so dead on his feet he could barely keep himself upright was the time that the boy was most agreeable. 

Anakin had finished the glass of water and was now staring blankly at his shaking hands. 

“Anakin, are you alright? Should I call the healers?” Obi-Wan questioned, suddenly very concerned that the low-grade temperature wasn't the only thing ailing his padawan.

Anakin shook his head and about jumped back three feet at the kettle whistle. 

“Sorry padawan.” Obi-Wan apologized as he went to the kitchen to remove the hot water. Anakin remained in the center of the room one arm still drawn around him, heedless of his master’s previous orders. 

Clearly able to recognize that Anakin wasn't about to initiate anything in his own Obi-Wan stepped forward to the taller Jedi and unwrapped his arms from around himself, easing both limbs out of the soaked overtunic. 

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin started again, his voice sounding painfully hoarse as if he had been shouting...or weeping. Obi-Wan paused his ministrations to look again at Anakin’s face. His eyes were downcast and filled with tears, his mouth trembled slightly. He looked nothing like the man that led others into hell and came out singing, he looked ill. He looked like a man suffering from a great wasting disease. 

“Master, I’m sorry.” Anakin spilled, the last words coming out in a sob. “I’m so sorry, for what I said, for what I  _ did _ .” Tears tracked openly down his white face now and Obi-wan thought that if Anakin continued he would begin to cry as well at the sheer amount of misery he felt over his former padawan like a halo. But when Obi-Wan opened his mouth to give comfort he discovered he had no words to give the boy, how could he ever answer such quiet distress. 

“I...I’ll go now.” Anakin sobbed “I’m so so sorry.” 

Obi-wan kept a firm grip on his shoulders, “Anakin hush.” Obi-Wan amended. As gently as he could the master laid a hand against the boy’s cheek. “Hush”

Anakin still refused to meet his master’s eyes. “It’s alright, everything is alright.” Obi-Wan told him, “ we will make things alright.”

“How could you say that?” The younger Jedi finally raised his eyes to meet his master’s concerned look. Anakin’s strained voice hurt to hear.

“We will,” Obi-wan said resolutely. “You will be ok. We will be ok. Things are alright. Let’s just focus on right now.``He lifted the hand on the boy’s cheek and moved it to feel the wet hair plastered to his forehead. “I’m going to make tea while you get warm, we don’t have to think about anything further than that”.

Anakin took in a shuddering breath, “ok”.

Obi-Wan busied himself in the kitchen while Anakin showered and got out of his wet clothes. Bringing out a second mug, Obi-wan gave himself a moment to take a deep breath himself, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill past his iron shields. Maybe because he was overtired himself, or emotionally strained he thought he heard a deep baritone voice echo in his ears, full of calm and safety he hadn’t felt since he was very very young. _ “Maybe you shouldn’t dash away those tears, maybe what Anakin needs right now is to see you cry. Let him know he isn’t by himself and both worlds will seem brighter” _

Obi-wan took another breath feeling more tears burn into his eyes.

_ My dear master, forgive me for what has happened, I’ve always tried so hard to be what he needed me to be. _

Clearing the thoughts from his mind Obi-Wan began pouring water and tea leaves into two separate mugs, letting the soft warm aroma circle him comfortingly. Qui-Gon had always made him tea when he was upset. It may just be in his mind but oftentimes an hour of mediation and a warm cup of tea made him feel better than any other worldly comfort. Summoning the force around himself he released a ream of stress that had been settling behind his eyes, preparing to become a migraine. He had meant what he told Anakin, they would be ok, he would make things ok. 

Setting the mugs down on the front room table Obi-Wan took a moment to retrieve another blanket from his bed and lay it warmly over their sofa. Knowing Anakin he would still be cold even with a hot shower and tea. Obi-Wan heard the fresher door open and Anakin emerged wearing the comfortable sleep clothes Obi-Wan had set out for him. His composure was better but his face looked somehow worse. His cheeks were slightly flushed from the newfound warmth making the rest of his face look ghastly white, the sunken parts of his eyes looking even darker in the shadowed apartment.

_ Oh Anakin, why do you burden yourself with everything, you don’t carry the sins of the galaxy around your shoulders the way you think you should. _

Both sat down on the sofa, Obi-wan handed Anakin the mug of warm tea that Anakin accepted with unsteady hands. 

“Thank you,” Anakin said, his voice still sounding not much louder than a whisper.

Obi-Wan could still see him shivering, taking the extra blanket he draped it around his shoulders hoping to offer some more comfort.

“Just stop,” Anakin said downcasting his eyes. “You don’t have to prove anything, you don’t have to be kind to me.” 

“No, you stop,” Obi-Wan said abruptly, setting his own mug of tea down. “I have a lot I still need to prove to you Anakin, not the least of which being how much you mean to me”. 

More gently, Obi-Wan tightened the blanket around his Padawans shoulders. “I have much to prove and you still have much to learn. I want to be kind to you, you have endured so much unkindness in your life it is my duty as your master to let you see that the world isn’t so full of hate and suffering and fear. I know you don’t think I HAVE to Anakin, but our relationship had never truly been about having to do anything. You deserve kindness padawan mine, and I am so grateful I am the one to give it to you….alright?” he questioned softly.

“Alright.” 

Obi-Wan gave his padawan a brief smile, “Not another word until you finish that tea young one.” and to his surprise Anakin obeyed him. 

  
  


Anakin had been stunned when Obi-Wan had opened the door. It had been mere seconds after he had gathered enough courage to knock himself. But the moment he laid eyes on his former master all the strength and resolved he had patchworked together left him. Obi-Wan’s blue eyes looked haunted as he stared at Anakin. By his expression, Anakin could tell he must look dreadful. He would have felt irritated at his physical appearance betraying how he felt if he had had the energy. Anakin felt slightly stunned when Obi-Wan had ushered him inside with promises of warmth, and nearly broke when his master stroked his face with all the comfort and love Anakin had pushed away the night she left.

Now after a hot shower and warm mug of tea all Anakin felt was a slow creeping exhaustion, somehow Obi-wan had cajoled him into resting and he now leaned comfortably against Obi-Wans side. His head still nestled nicely on his mentor’s shoulder. The two of them hadn’t spoken in a while. The last conversion Obi-wan had tried to initiate had been an attempt to get Anakin to try and eat something. Anakin had refused food for the night under the guise that he felt vaguely unwell. In hindsight that might not have been the best excuse. He did feel sick but now Obi-Wan would fuss and Anakin was much too tired to endure Obi-Wan's prodding. However, Obi-Wan hadn’t begun his usual fussing. Instead, he had sat back on the sofa pulling the second blanket around Anakin’s shoulders and half pulled his padawan into leaning against the cushion which had then morphed into Anakin resting against Obi-Wans shoulder. 

The two were quiet now, letting themselves remain in companionable silence. Anakin had been too drained to even cry in the fresher and was too exhausted to even think about wanting to talk with Obi-Wan now. He had been so terrified, had acted like a youngling afraid of the dark. He should have known how Obi-wan would be. What had he expected? Another beating like the ones he had received when he was very young and still considered someone else’s property? Anakin called this man master but knew he could never be like any of his slavers. If anything he would have been in for another lecture on the power and will of the force. Those had irked him but were a far cry than other punishments he had received. 

He felt his eyes begin to tire and the longer he blinked the more he wanted to let them close. It made sense he was tired. When had been the last time he had slept or even rested? He couldn’t remember. When he wasn't pacing around his apartment trying to work up the courage to open her bedroom door he had been in the training rooms destroying training probes. Or combing through the archives and holonet looking for any mention of a togruta girl. The worst had been combing through Coruscanti obituaries. His breath shuddered in his chest and a hiccup escaped his mouth at the memory of the pain and fear he had put himself through.

“Shhh” Obi-Wan whispered. Anakin felt his master shift underneath him and lifted a hand to check his temperature again, and then began to stroke his hair. 

Anakin wanted to say a thousand things to Obi-Wan but his willpower to remain awake for too long was running out. Instead, he turned his face into the older Jedi’s shoulder and let out a slow, sleepy breath. And to Anakin’s surprise, he felt his master’s chest shift and begin to rumble. Obi-Wan was humming. His crisp voice had always been a clear tenor but the song he was humming thrummed deep inside of him. The song was slow and sad with just a hint of brightness at the end of each note. It was a song Anakin remembered from some long nights of his childhood when as a boy he had woken screaming and shaking so much he thought his bones would crack. He had buried himself into Obi-Wan’s chest and let himself breathe in the scent of his master. Obi-wan would hum lullabies and tunes to him as he sobbed for sometimes two or three hours at a time.

Anakin felt like he should be embarrassed at how Obi-Wan was treating him like he once again was a frightened nine-year-old, but all he felt was an overwhelming lack of concern. And he hadn’t felt this safe for a long, long time. 

Somewhere from inside of him, Anakin salvaged enough strength to try and communicate one more time. 

“I’m sorry. I didn't mean it, any of it. I know,” His breath hitched again, exhausted tears threatened to leak out of his closed eyes. “I know you love her, I just wish...I wish I could stop missing her.”

“Hush,” Obi-Wan said again as if quiet shushing could ease all the maelstrom of pain Anakin had felt tearing through him. 

“I,” Anakin started again.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan brought his hand to cup the side of Anakin’s face again like he was trying to shield him from some horrible scene. “ I understand why you said what you did, you were hurting, and I also understand that you didn't mean it. It’s ok. Please believe me when I say we all have done and said things to people we care for that we wish we could take back. And I have to say I’m sorry as well. I don’t know why she...why Ahsoka.” His voice broke slightly at finally setting her name loose, “Left.” He finished. “I know it might not be what you want to hear right now, but I know that things happen for a reason. It’s alright to grieve the loss of your lives together, but please, please young one, trust in the force.”

Anakin looked as if he was nearly asleep. His breathing was light and fairly even, his eyes closed gently without tension in his brow. He let out a contented sigh only slightly affected by loss and pain. 

“ I wish I could know if she’s ok,” Anakin whispered.

“I know, Padawan...I know.” Obi-Wan soothed

“I want her home master…. I want to go home.” That last admission had stunned Anakin as he said it. He was much too exhausted to truly figure out what it meant right now. He was in the temple, wasn't that home? 

“You are home young one, you're here with me, and we're home”. 

Something sang through Anakin, resolute and clear with understanding. Padme was home, his mother was home, Ahsoka was home, Obi-Wan was home, even Qui-Gon had meant home to him for however brief a time. 

“Now hush,” Obi-Wan repeated. “You won’t dream tonight Anakin, I promise, just sleep.” Obi-Wan stroked his face again. “Just sleep.”

Anakin sighed again, finally relaxing enough to let his tired mind and body let go. He fell asleep pressed against his master’s warm body. And not the fever burning through him, or the cold shivers or the threat of waking could have changed the overwhelming feeling of comfort that seeped through his skin. All the pain and sadness that wrenched through him on the streets of Coruscant, for now, a distant memory. 

He did, however, dream. He dreamt of blue eyes and laughing, And the sun in his beloved’s hair, and could have sworn he heared someone say “Race you to the top Skyguy.” Anakin Skywalker smiled. 


End file.
